PCE PCM

[Arkhan]

Yes, but FM synth style bass, when sampled, won't sound quite as good as it should, as we've already discussed multiple times. 

For *my* taste, I want the synth style bass to actually sound right.   Retriggering is probably going to make it sound off, to me.

[Bonknuts]

Well, screw you haters haha. There's potential in the "sampler" driver. I'm just going to refer to it as that, because I'm sick of typing out sample based synth. "Samplers" is the word used to describe sample based standalone synths in the 90s. So it works for me.


 I don't get this whole "for title screens and menus" mentality. If it was that bad, I would even bother (maybe..lol). What NES did with 25% (actually closer to 20% because of the sprite metatile decoding the NES has to do for smaller sprites) is pretty damn good. SMB3 totally plays like a 16bit game. The current driver with all 6 channel eating 36% is nothing! Leaving 64% for game stuffs. Tile screen my ass ;>_> Even if it got fancy or whatever -> went up to 60% cpu resource. That still has potential way beyond "title screens". Maybe not for HuC, but assembly (and for games, not demos) - it's doable. RPGs with SNES sampler style string leads on the PCE? Not interested? I am. 

 What's with all this MSX stuff? I thought this was a PCE forum. I like MSX as much as I like Speccy - from a distance. It's great fun to watch all the achievements on the systems, but beyond that I don't care. It's a curiosity to me and nothing more.

[Michirin9801]

Yes, but FM synth style bass, when sampled, won't sound quite as good as it should, as we've already discussed multiple times. 

For *my* taste, I want the synth style bass to actually sound right.   Retriggering is probably going to make it sound off, to me.

I know it won't sound 'as good' but that doesn't mean it won't sound 'good'...
I've sampled an FM bass to use with famitracker on the DPCM channel, kinda like what Sunsoft did with some of their games, and the DPCM is 1 bit whereas the PCE PCM is 5 bit and doesn't support sample looping (not to a useful extent at least), but at least you can pitch-shift the samples in hardware, but you can only down-pitch them at uneven intervals so you need 5 samples with different notes (A#, B, C, C# and D) to get the full scale of notes...
All that said, the sampled FM bass sounded pretty good! Albeit too loud, the triangle channel can't even be heard while it plays... Yeah the Triangle sucks for basses, but put together with the Noise channel it can make some pretty good drums! It's all a matter of me editing the samples so that they can be quieter and then re-importing them and remaking the instrument, which I'm too lazy to do and too busy making PCE music instead, which is much better...

[elmer]

Well, screw you haters haha. There's potential in the "sampler" driver. I'm just going to refer to it as that, because I'm sick of typing out sample based synth. "Samplers" is the word used to describe sample based standalone synths in the 90s. So it works for me.

Sure ... you're right, and Akai pretty-much had the market cornered with them, BITD.

The terminology doesn't worry me, in the least.

Maybe not for HuC, but assembly (and for games, not demos) - it's doable. RPGs with SNES sampler style string leads on the PCE? Not interested? I am.

Then do it! 

You've found a musician who's raring to go ... get on with it! 

Let's all stop the "talking", and start more of the "doing" around here ... that's what I've been acting as the sand in the oyster and irritating folks for, for a while now ... 

Show us how darned good it can sound! 

What's with all this MSX stuff? I thought this was a PCE forum.

'cmon, you know it's not possible to talk to Arkhan about music for more than 60 seconds without the superiority of the MSX coming up. 

(But ... I really do like the sound of Yamaha FM synths, I've certainly bought enough of them.)

[Arkhan]

The terminology doesn't worry me, in the least.

lol.  this is a first.

Let's all stop the "talking", and start more of the "doing" around here ... that's what I've been acting as the sand in the oyster and irritating folks for, for a while now ... 

Agreed.  Though, often, the doing tends to taper off and then more talking comes, and then, you get the idea.   

'cmon, you know it's not possible to talk to Arkhan about music for more than 60 seconds without the superiority of the MSX coming up. 

(But ... I really do like the sound of Yamaha FM synths, I've certainly bought enough of them.)

You're the knob that brought it up, lol.   

I also don't think it's really superior.   It's just different, and has something PCE doesn't, which is 3 different main chips to work with.

But, everyone over there is actually quite jealous that the PCE can pan the f*ckin' sound.   SCC can't do that.    At all.

and, to be fair, it's a completely relevant topic in this thread.  Why single out and bitch about the MSX when MD and SNES are also coming up in this thread?

and Amiga.

just because you, Bonknuts, don't care about it, doesn't mean it's taboo.

We're talking about sound sampling, while comparing and contrasting stuff.   Seems OK to me.



I'm genuinely curious if we can get a good FM synth bass sample that is convincing.   I have doubts.  So, if someone else can get one that doesn't make me go "yeahno", show me.

[Bonknuts]

just because you, Bonknuts, don't care about it, doesn't mean it's taboo.

We're talking about sound sampling, while comparing and contrasting stuff.   Seems OK to me.

Dude. I'm just giving you some shit. No worries. It's like, every time MSX is mentioned - it's always by arkhan lol. It's more weird to mention it here on PCE forums because its user base seems to have a pretty big disconnect from PCE (and everything else; it's its own thing).

[Michirin9801]

The thing about the MSX is that it needs expansion soundchips to really sound 'good'...
Don't get me wrong the MSX PSG can put out good music if used right (USAS anyone?) But that's some "Not as good as NES" kind of good, and I'm the kind of person who doesn't even think the NES is THAT good... (Game Boy though is MUCH better because DAC)
In my personal opinion, expansion soundchips cheapen the value of the soundtrack while at the same time making the game more expensive... Yeah, the soundtrack is gonna be better with an expansion, but the system couldn't do that soundtrack without the expansion...

Personally, I'm more interested in what the system can do out of the box, which is why one of my Famitracker rules is "No expansions! Raw NES only!" and I'm all for pushing the limits of the system which is why I'm such a big fan of the Sunsoft DPCM bass and why I'm that much more impressed when I see parallax scrolling on the PC engine, the NES and the GB/GBC than when I see it on the SNES or on the MD for example... Those systems already have 2 or more BG layers out of the box, parallax for them is like, no sweat, in fact, all the more reason to be disappointed with them when they don't do it (except on top-down games, those don't really need parallax other than some very specific instances)
And that's also why I asked about wave-phasing, that was meant to be an easy-on-the-CPU way to get sample-like instruments on the PC engine! (Kind of)

With all that in mind it's no wonder I'm so excited about Bonknuts' sampler driver, it's gonna pretty much break the limits of the PCE without the need for any expansions!
Now don't get me wrong, it's not like there aren't any exceptions, I was the one wanting to use the CD ADPCM to play percussion samples and free up a PSG channel to play something else on a HuCard game, and I've made it no secret that I'm a huge fan of the SNES, and the system uses a f***ton of expansion chips!
(But you know, none of them are 'sound expansions', the SNES didn't need any sound expansions because it already sounds better than real life ;3)

Maybe not for HuC, but assembly (and for games, not demos) - it's doable. RPGs with SNES sampler style string leads on the PCE? Not interested? I am.

Then do it! 

You've found a musician who's raring to go ... get on with it! 

If you're talking about me, you're absolutely correct ;3
I am VERY interested...
(But first I gotta finish dat gaem...)

P.S. I also make Grafx in case someone didn't catch it, check out this example I did within the MD's limitations:

There's 3 overlapping layers, the tree in the middle layer is a sprite, I think you get how it works from just looking...

[Arkhan]

Msx2+ has onboard fm, and FM is part of the MSX standard, so, its not really an expansion at that point.

A large portion of the library uses it.   So, calling it an expansion is a bit limp.

Are you coding the MD game, or just art and tunes?

@bonknuts, oh, couldnt tell.

The msx scene has a good handle on PCE, though.   They just dont come here. 

Dunno why its weird to mention it here.   No wierder than any other computer.   Like Amiga, lol.





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[Michirin9801]

Msx2+ has onboard fm, and FM is part of the MSX standard, so, its not really an expansion at that point.

A large portion of the library uses it.   So, calling it an expansion is a bit limp.

Yeah I get your point, but still, it 'was' an expansion at one point...

Are you coding the MD game, or just art and tunes?

I can't code for s***, I'm strictly an artist >w>';
I'm having help from 2 programmers, and we're making the game for the PC first, 'after' the PC version is completed THEN the MD version will be made...
That said though, we're thoroughly respecting the limitations of the MD on the PC version (with the exception of sprite flickering, not like there's gonna be much of it) so both versions should be pretty much identical (hopefully)

[TailChao]

C'mon ... you can get a YMF262 OPL3 FM chip + YAC512 DAC for $1.60 on fleabay ... we could totally blow-away all of those scummy MSX and Genesis guys!   

Well, on 2nd look, I think that we'd actually need a YMF289B OPL3 FM chip + YAC513 DAC, in order to meet the fast memory access timings of the PCE, and those cost a little bit more ... approx $6 per pair. 

You also need an oscillator and will only get mono audio anyway.

Those great 5V ARM microcontrollers from Cypress you brought up over a year ago are still the best solution here. Analog out is included, and if you add some sort of bidirectional comms in a mapper you can use it as a Cypress FX.

I ended up going with the FM3 family for my current project (specifically the MB9BF524K) and ported over my Windows softsynth without any huge issues. But this is a full music player, and I think in the case of the PCE it would be more useful to just complement what's already in the box.

BTW ... I absolutely *love* the sound of Yamaha's 4-operator FM synths. 

Fantastic sound, whole OPN family is really cool.

Although if you're just looking for chips to mess with the YM2608 is pretty well rounded compared to the others. I did start building a HuCard with an MC-Genjin + YM2612 on it a few years ago but never finished it for the sourcing reasons above.

RPGs with SNES sampler style string leads on the PCE? Not interested? I am.

If it works with the style of the game, why not?

[ccovell]

Dude. I'm just giving you some shit. No worries. It's like, every time MSX is mentioned - it's always by arkhan lol. It's more weird to mention it here on PCE forums because its user base seems to have a pretty big disconnect from PCE (and everything else; it's its own thing).

We're just lucky nobody needs to complain about shitty scrolling in PCE games, otherwise the MSX would get invoked every 4th post!

[Arkhan]

Ah, thats pretty cool.    Im curious to see what it is when the game is done. 

Msx though, is like pc88 and 98...   the fm wasnt originally in them.   They added it later as an expansion card, as it didnt exist when the computer was originally released.

( ‘-^ )b

Thats one perk to computers!  You can stay with the hardware as it arrives, way easier than a console, lol.

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[Arkhan]

Dude. I'm just giving you some shit. No worries. It's like, every time MSX is mentioned - it's always by arkhan lol. It's more weird to mention it here on PCE forums because its user base seems to have a pretty big disconnect from PCE (and everything else; it's its own thing).

We're just lucky nobody needs to complain about shitty scrolling in PCE games, otherwise the MSX would get invoked every 4th post!

Lolol just saw this. 

I have to laugh when people use that as their way to dismiss msx, citing youtube and never actually playing one.

Thats a good example of real hardware or at least ok emulation mattering.   Youtube drops frames and makes the chunk scroll look worse than it is. 

And even so, it doesnt really ruin the games.   Id take msx gall force over fds! 



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[ccovell]

Dude. I'm just giving you some shit. No worries. It's like, every time MSX is mentioned - it's always by arkhan lol. It's more weird to mention it here on PCE forums because its user base seems to have a pretty big disconnect from PCE (and everything else; it's its own thing).

We're just lucky nobody needs to complain about shitty scrolling in PCE games, otherwise the MSX would get invoked every 4th post!

Lolol just saw this. 

I have to laugh when people use that as their way to dismiss msx, citing youtube and never actually playing one.

I would never dis the hardware having never played on the real thing; that would make me look like an idiot.  No, I've played games on real MSX computers, and after 10 minutes the shake & bake scrolling made my eyes hurt.  Even ZX Spectrum games often did a better job.

[elmer]

P.S. I also make Grafx in case someone didn't catch it, check out this example I did within the MD's limitations:

There's 3 overlapping layers, the tree in the middle layer is a sprite, I think you get how it works from just looking...

I meant to mention this before ... that looks really good, to me, nice work!